Cat and Mouse
by Griddlebone
Summary: AU. When Katherine inexplicably reverts back to her evil ways and begins a horrifying game of cat-and-mouse with her perceived nemesis, Kimberly, it's up to the former Power Rangers to figure out what happened and return Kat to normal before it's too late.
1. Chapter 1

Notes: Before I start this story, I would just like to say that while I did want to write a story that pits evil!Kat against some of her former friends in new and darker (and hopefully a bit surprising) ways, I do _not_ want to do her character the injustices that many stories do. So there _will_ be a reason for the things that Katherine does in this story, it may just take me a while to get to the explanation. Please be patient!

Warnings: This story contains fairly explicit non-con femmeslash.

-x-

Trini came awake slowly, feeling sluggish with the cold. After a while she became aware that she was strapped down tightly onto a hard, metallic surface. She opened her eyes to darkness and realized that she was blindfolded, too. A few more moments passed, and it occurred to her that she wasn't just freezing, she was naked.

In her groggy confusion, she had only just managed to get around to wondering where she was and how she had come to be there in the first place (and her clothes had not) when someone nearby commented, "Oh good, you're awake."

The voice sounded familiar, but it took Trini a long time to place it. "Kat? Katherine Hillard?"

"That's right," Kat fairly purred.

There were sounds of movement nearby, as if Kat were coming closer. Trini shifted experimentally against the straps that bound her, but found she could barely move, much less wriggle free.

She had been in dangerous situations like this before, so she knew better than to panic. And based on her previous experiences she knew that Katherine, who was little more than an acquaintance but was nonetheless also a fellow former Power Ranger, should be an ally. They should work together to escape whatever trap they had fallen into.

But there was something about Katherine, the things she'd said and the way she'd said them, that could only be described as frightening.

Trini flinched as the other woman's hand gently caressed her cheek. Icy fingertips just barely touched her skin as that hand slipped down her neck and across her chest to cup her breast. Kat's thumb flicked over the nipple twice, applying a strong pressure that marked the action as undeniably deliberate, and Trini felt the first sparks of real fear ignite in her heart.

"What's going on?" she asked, sounding as frightened and uncertain as she suddenly felt.

"Nothing you need to worry about," Kat responded, leaning so close that Trini could feel Kat's breath on her cheek. "I'm not going to hurt you. Not yet, anyway."


	2. Chapter 2

Trini's thoughts were racing so wildly that at first she did not notice that Kat had stepped away and was no longer tormenting her. By the time she realized that this could only mean that worse things were ahead, it was too late.

"Hello," Kat announced cheerfully.

"Kat?" Kimberly's voice was slightly distorted, but instantly recognizable. Trini felt her heart sink. "What's going on? And why are you on my computer?"

"I just wanted to let you know that Trini is fine," Kat told her.

"You've heard from her? We've been so worried! Why hasn't she been in touch?"

Trini suddenly wondered how long she had been unconscious before waking up on Kat's mad-scientist table. Her blood ran cold when she realized she had no idea just how long she might have been Kat's prisoner. She had been missing long enough for Jason and Kim to have alerted all of their friends, at least.

"Trini's been a bit _indisposed_," Kat said, as if it were perfectly normal.

"Kim, get me out of here," Trini managed to interject.

"Trini?" Kimberly exclaimed.

"Oh, she's been here with me the whole time," Kat explained calmly. "Want to say hi?"

For a moment there was silence. And then: "What the _hell_? Why is she... what happened to her _clothes_?"

"I wanted to get your attention."

"Well, you've got it. And I'll even skip 'what is wrong with you?' and go straight to 'what do you want?'"

"I want you."

"You're kidding."

There was silence for a long time, as Kimberly slowly realized that Kat was being deadly serious. Trini struggled against the straps that bound her. She wanted more than anything to rip that stupid blindfold off of her eyes, but she couldn't get free no matter how hard she tried. She relaxed against the table again, feeling tears prick at her eyes and wishing Kimberly didn't have to see her like this.

"Come on, Kat, this isn't funny," Kimberly said at last. "Whatever you're after, at least let Trini go home. Jason's been absolutely frantic since she disappeared."

"It's not a joke," Kat replied icily. "But I'm willing to make a deal. She's free to go, as long as you take her place."

"No way," Kim retorted, in a tone that suggested she would settle for nothing less than pummeling Kat.

"I see. You'd rather take the chance that I'm going to hurt her more for every minute you refuse."

"Fine," Kim relented. "I'll come to wherever your little hideout is. But first I want to know what your deal is. And I want your word that you're not going to hurt Trini."

"Oh, I promise I'm not going to _hurt_ her," Kat said. Trini shuddered. It wasn't pain that she feared from Katherine at this point. "But I'm not going to tell you what I'm after until you get here." She paused for a beat. "You'd better start looking or you're never going to find this place."

"You're not going to tell me where it is, are you?"

"And ruin the suspense? Of course not."

"You know I'm going to tell Jason about this," Kimberly said stiffly, after a brief pause. "There's no way I'm walking into your little trap alone and unprepared."

"I'm counting on it, Kimberly," Kat said, her voice like a purr. "I'm counting on you to tell Jason all the wonderful things I'm going to do to his girlfriend until you get here and give me what I really want."

Trini did not need to see to know that Kat would be grinning wickedly in the face of Kimberly's outrage and horror. She did not need to see to guess what might happen next, and so she was at least theoretically prepared when Kat leaned close and kissed her full on the mouth.

The moment Kat's tongue entered her mouth, Trini bit down hard. She tasted blood, but Kat only pulled away slightly and gave a low, self-satisfied chuckle.

"You go, Trini!" Kimberly cheered. "Don't stop fighting! I'm going to get Jason now, and we're going to come find you as soon as we can. We'll get you out of there, I pro-"

The feed cut out abruptly. Trini did not know if Kat had turned it off or merely muted it. She hoped it was off, so Kimberly wouldn't have to see any more.

"That's better," Katherine sighed. Trini shuddered as Kat dragged two fingers slowly down her side, fingernails digging in slightly.

A few seconds later, Kat climbed up onto the table to straddle Trini's hips with her thighs. Trini hoped for another chance to bite her, but it seemed Kat had learned her lesson the first time. Instead of giving Trini another opportunity to fight back, Kat leaned forward until her chest was flush with Trini's and kissed her on the neck.

Trini struggled to breathe. She felt smothered, almost paralyzed by terror, as Kat pressed a line of wet, open-mouthed kisses up her neck. But before she could pull her head away, Kat's hands were there, holding her in place.

"Now," Kat murmured, pausing to nip gently at the lobe of Trini's ear, "Where were we?"


	3. Chapter 3

The moment Katherine's cruelly smiling face disappeared from her computer screen, Kimberly turned the damned thing off. She stared at it for a moment in disbelief after the screen went black, wondering if she really had seen Kat molesting Trini on camera just now, then took the extra precaution of unplugging the computer altogether so Kat hopefully would be unable to mysteriously hijack it again.

Of course, that also meant there was a good chance Kat couldn't make any more ransom calls now, but that was a risk Kimberly was willing to take. It had been three days since they found Trini's car where she'd abandoned it on the side of the road. If Kat had kept her alive for that long already, Kim hoped that meant Trini would be safe for the time being, ransom calls or no.

She forced herself to wait a few moments, hoping to regain some composure or at least stop shaking, then reached for her phone and hesitated again.

Kat hadn't said anything along the lines of "don't call the police," but Kimberly had a feeling that getting the authorities involved could turn out to be a bad idea. Something about this situation just screamed ranger business. She had been retired for a long time, but that didn't mean she couldn't recognize the signs.

So she dialed Jason's number instead of calling the police. It rang several times before the answering machine finally picked up.

Cursing her luck, Kimberly waited for the beep before leaving her message. "Jase, it's Kim. I've got news about Trini._ Call me_."

She waited a few agonizing minutes, to see if he simply hadn't been able to get to the phone quickly enough to answer before the machine picked up, before calling his cell phone. When she received no answer there, either, she left the same message as before. After she hung up, she almost threw her phone across the room out of sheer frustration.

What if Kat had gotten to Jason, too? It hadn't sounded like it, but anything was possible.

Kimberly was determined to remain calm. _I will not panic. If I panic, she wins._ Successfully resisting the urge to hurl her phone into a nearby wall, she dialed another number. She was just about to give up when someone finally answered.

"Hayley's Cyberspace -"

"Tommy? Why are you answering the phone for Hayley?"

"Kim?" he asked, sounding distinctly embarrassed. "It's a long story. What's up?"

Kimberly fidgeted for a moment, wondering just how much she should tell him. _Hey, Tommy, I was just calling to let you know that your ex-girlfriend kidnapped my best friend for no reason I can fathom_ just had a bad ring to it.

"Have you heard from Trini?" he guessed into the awkward silence. Even after several years apart he still had an uncanny knack for knowing what was on her mind.

"Uh, well... That's kind of the problem."

Tommy's voice dropped closer to a whisper. "What do you mean? She's not... is she?"

"No," Kimberly said, hating how fragile and terrified the quiver in her voice made her sound. "She's alive. Or she was a few minutes ago."

"Hang on," he said.

A moment later there was a loud click, and Kimberly almost thought he'd hung up on her.

Then: "Kimberly, I'm here. Talk to me." It was Hayley. Kimberly could have cried from sheer relief. "I've got you on speakerphone. Tommy's here, too, and we've got the office door closed so no one's going to overhear."

"It's," Kimberly started, floundered, and started over. "I need you to help me find Trini."

"You know I've been trying. Has there been any news? Any new leads?"

"I, well..." She took a deep breath and decided to tell them everything. "I got a call a few minutes ago. On my computer, a video call. From Kat. She's got Trini."

"That's good news, isn't it?" Tommy asked.

"Unless she and Trini are playing some kind of sick prank on me, it's not," Kimberly admitted. She told them briefly about what she had seen during the call from Katherine, and by the end she was practically in tears. She felt as if she had just divulged some sort of horrible secret. Worse, she felt an overwhelming and completely irrational fear that Katherine would hurt Trini because Kimberly had sought help. _But she_ told me _to get Jason involved... so why not Tommy and Hayley, too?_ "I don't know what to do."

"But why would she do something like that? That's not like her at all."

"She contacted you?" Hayley asked, ignoring Tommy's disbelieving mutterings. Given his history, Tommy should have known better than anyone how susceptible humans could be to outside influences. It was entirely possible, in fact Kimberly considered it likely, that Kat was not in control of her own actions. "I can try to trace where she was calling from, but I'll need access to your computer."

"Of course," Kimberly said. "But I, uh, unplugged it as soon as she hung up. I was scared." It sounded stupid now, but she still had no desire to turn the thing back on. She wasn't sure she could deal with having to see Kat's lair all over again.

"That may not be a bad thing," Hayley said. "You may have broken the connection before she could cover her tracks. If she was even trying to."

"Do you think I could bring it to you to look at?" While she knew she could somehow give Hayley remote access to her computer, she would have felt better just letting Hayley handle all of it. Computers might mystify Kimberly, who owned one largely in order to keep in touch with friends and family, but she knew there wasn't a computer-related problem Hayley couldn't solve. "I could call out at work and come over to Reefside -"

Just then there came a loud knock at her door. Kimberly shrieked and dropped her phone before whirling instinctively into a defensive stance. The phone cracked loudly against the floor, but did not break.

"Oh God," she gasped, realizing she had just colossally overreacted. But even as she stooped to retrieve the phone, her heart felt like it had skipped a beat. When she brought the phone to her ear again, she was met by mild chaos; Hayley was calling her name, while Tommy demanded to know what had happened and if she was all right.

"It's okay. I'm okay," Kimberly said, struggling to breathe. "Someone just knocked on my door and gave me a heart attack, that's all."

She crept over to the door, even though she knew it was pointless to try to be stealthy when she had just screamed loud enough to wake the dead, and peered through the peephole. She sighed with relief, laughing a little. "It's just Jason. Leave it to him to scare me half to death like that."

"Whack him upside the head for me," Tommy urged. "You scared _us_ half to death just now."

"I will," she promised. "Or you can do it later -"

"I'll do it later anyway. I'm sure he deserves it."

"- But let me get him caught up first. I'll call you back when we're all on the same page."

Tommy was in the process of urging her to just switch her phone over to speaker mode so they could all talk to Jason at once when Hayley cut in. "If we don't hear from you in half an hour, we'll call to check in." Kimberly could practically feel the glare Hayley was directing at Tommy. For what seemed like the millionth time, she was glad Tommy had someone like Hayley around to keep him in line now. It made dealing with him that much easier.

She thanked Hayley wholeheartedly, but as soon as she hung up the phone trepidation washed over her again. She wasn't sure at all how to break this news to Jason. He would want to know where Trini was and what had happened to her even more than Kim did, but once he knew - and once he got his hands on Kat - it wouldn't be pretty.

She took a couple of deep breaths, a trick Trini had taught her long ago, and steeled herself for the inevitable.

She had been a Power Ranger, after all. She had faced things far more terrifying than this. Directing and minimizing Jason's anger couldn't be _that _difficult, not compared to saving the world.

Too bad she'd known Jason far too long to believe that. She was going to have her work cut out for her, but she had no more time to waste. With Trini's life at stake, every second mattered.

Kimberly took one last deep breath, let it go, and opened the door to let Jason in.


	4. Chapter 4

From the moment she realized that Trini was Kat's prisoner, rather than her guest, Kimberly had been preparing herself for Jason's rage. She had expected an explosion, but when she had finished her explanation, she found herself faced with silence. And that cold, calm quiet terrified her more than Jason's fury ever could.

She gave him a few minutes to let it all sink in, waiting for the inevitable angry outburst. But the outburst never came and finally she couldn't take it anymore. "Jason, you're scaring me."

He glowered at her, stubbornly silent.

"Please tell me you aren't going to kill Kat." _At least, not until we find out why she did this_, she added mentally.

The glower turned into a glare, but in the end he relented. Kat had been his friend, too. "I'm not going to kill her," he said at last. "But if she's really holding Trini hostage, she's going to have a lot of explaining to do."

"I'm not sure she's really... herself right now," Kim told him. "She definitely wasn't acting like it."

Jason's only response was a noncommittal grunt.

Kimberly eyed him skeptically. He met her gaze unflinchingly. She could still see the anger there, seething in his eyes, but at least he no longer seemed about to wreak destruction on her innocent house - or Katherine. Not right away, at least. "Come on," she said, hoping to distract him and give him some time to cool down. "You can help me get my computer in the car. The sooner Hayley gets a look at this thing, the better."

That got him moving. By the time they had maneuvered the large computer tower and the assorted cables out onto the porch, Kimberly was grumbling about investing in a laptop... and bracing herself for the inevitable.

"I'm going with you to Reefside," Jason announced roughly two seconds later, as if there had ever been any doubt.

Kimberly wasn't about to argue.

So they loaded everything into Jason's vehicle instead of hers, and headed out as soon as she had gone back to get her purse and lock the house up. As she climbed into the passenger seat, she had a fleeting hope that they might use this time to start laying down some plans, but in the end they drove in silence.

Jason was as ominously unresponsive to all of her attempts at conversation as he had been before. He was driving alarmingly fast and his hands gripped the steering wheel so hard she began to fear he was going to tear it off. Anger had always been a major flaw of his... especially when the people he loved were in danger. Kimberly really hoped he could keep that anger in check long enough to figure out what was really going on. Trini's life - and Kat's - might depend on it.

She did not want to rush into guessing what that might be, since she had no proof to back up any of her (wilder) fears, but she couldn't seem to keep herself from going over the possibilities again and again. She had a bad feeling that Kat was not in control of her own actions. And if someone, or something, else was manipulating her, that could mean bad news not just for Kim and the other former Power Rangers, but for everyone on Earth. And that meant...

They didn't have any time to waste. They didn't just need to save Trini, they needed to figure out what had made Kat evil again and find a way to undo it if they could. And the sooner, the better.

When they finally reached the highway, Jason floored it, temporarily jarring Kimberly out of her thoughts. She watched the scenery fly past and hoped they wouldn't get pulled over. If their adversary was powerful enough to control Kat, a former Power Ranger, then they were going to need every advantage - and every second - they could get. She only hoped it would be enough.

She glanced at Jason, so totally focused and all but radiating tension. She thought of Trini, blindfolded and tied down on that mad-scientist table. She remembered the way Kat had so blatantly tried to violate Trini and felt steely resolve prickling in her heart. Abruptly, she changed her mind. Mere hope wasn't good enough. Whoever was behind this had better watch out. They weren't going to get away with this. She would see to that, no matter what it took.


End file.
